gordon s Posted July 17, 2020 Author Share Posted July 17, 2020 (edited) Looking at our dining room table, I'm reminded there are only 196 shopping days to Christmas.... A typical day in ET world has its share of ups and downs and this morning has run true to form. Finally finished all the routes and was surprised my maths seemed to be way out with 96 routes reduced to 67. I should have sat up and listened to my maths teacher all those years ago... One thing that did come out of this exercise was the need for several additional crossovers to improve operational simplicity. It will mean a bit of rework on two or three boards (mainly the one over the stairwell) but it will now allow every line to access every platform. That may seem daft when you have up and down lines, but storage is only accessible from line 7 at the top of the panel. Trains joining the layout will come in top right and then either continue and crossover all lines to 1 or 2 or stop in line 7 and then reverse back onto lines 3-4. Line 7 is normally the goods relief road, but it will allow trains to be held on this line until required and yet still allow all four main lines to continue running until such time the new train will join the layout. Work on the mimic panel is progressing, so the electrickery came out of the box this morning and suddenly it was Christmas.... All was fairly easy to follow until I realised the DCC addresses for each output automatically increase by one. This threw me at the beginning as I set the first output as 101 and when I thought I'd programmed the second one as 102, I was surprised to see the first set of led's change colour. This isn't a problem if you have consequential numbering of your DCC addresses, but in my wisdom I set the left hand approach starting 101 and the right hand end starting at 201. The shed was going to be 301 etc. I guess a lack of understanding on my part when setting addresses, but it now means either using additional boards or reprogramming all the addresses into sequential numbers. Of course that will mean reprogramming all the turnout decoders into sequential order as well....... Not the end of the world, but I don't understand the logic of not being able to programme individual addresses to each output. I'm sure there's a reason for it, but the downside of this set up quirk could have been made clearer in the sales literature. Edited July 17, 2020 by gordon s 7 1 1 2 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted July 17, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 17, 2020 2 hours ago, gordon s said: I should have sat up and listened to my maths teacher all those years ago. Are you sure? If you didn't listen, how do you know it would have helped? 1 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 18, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 18, 2020 (edited) On 19/12/2019 at 18:33, gordon s said: I'm an impatient soul when I'm on a run and sometimes my brain works quicker than my computer. When looking at a large print run where I only need a few sheets from the top of the plan, I click on 'next row' numerous times and often find I've gone one row too many..... The only way I know out of that is to cancel the print and start all over again....slowly. Is there an easy way of going back to the previous row if you've gone too far? Hi Gordon, I've returned to this after 7 months -- what else is a lockdown for? I said previously it was all too difficult. Well yes and no. I did in fact at that time do quite a lot of work on an entirely new all-singing page printing function. In the end I binned it as it had got just too complex and tangled to be usable. So I have gone back to my original 25-year-old code and added a simple clickable list of page numbers. By clicking in the list you can reset the next page to anywhere in the list, forward or back: Then use the buttons normally to restart from there, or to print just the one page. In the next Templot update soon. p.s. isn't Amazon getting Amazing? My battered computer keyboard finally gave up the ghost last night. Ordered a new one about 11pm. It was here before lunch today. I couldn't have got it any quicker by going straight out after breakfast and buying one. cheers, Martin. Edited July 18, 2020 by martin_wynne 2 1 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted July 18, 2020 Author Share Posted July 18, 2020 (edited) Thanks for all of the above Martin. It will be a welcome addition knowing I can go back as well as forward when printing. I hope my wandering around Templot and its back alleys is useful. I really don't expect you to change things every time, but user feedback has always proven invaluable during my working life. I know people have their moans about Amazon and taxation, but their service is amazing. I ordered a box spanner for around £8 and it was the wrong size, so I went to return it and saw it was a 'no return credit'. They immediately credited my account with the £8 and said keep the spanner. Ordered the correct one and it was there the next day. Similarly I bought a tap seat cutting tool and it was beautifully made, but I had to open the sealed packaging to use it. A bit of old fashioned engineering.... Sadly our tap was too deep to access, so I gathered all the bits together and put them in a bag. They gave me full credit as soon as it was booked in at my local post office....I wouldn't use anyone else (John Lewis excepted for TV's and computer bits). With Amazon Prime, goods always arrive the next day. I know you pay £79 a year for the service, but delivery charges alone would be much more that that over a year and you get Prime TV rolled in as well. I appreciate they are a huge organisation and have great customer ethos, but I have now come across many much smaller suppliers who have the same attitude on customer service. I ordered a filter and pump for our washing machine late on Thursday night from this company. https://www.ransomspares.co.uk It arrived by Royal Mail around lunchtime today. None of this Monday - Friday are working days, so expect delivery on Monday. Now fitted and problem solved. Saved having to fork out for a new machine and this one is 14 years old. Bags of life left in it now. I found the receipt and in 2006 it cost £479. Today, a similar spec machine from the same manufacturer/supplier is £329...... 14 years inflation and the price has gone down by 31%..... It's a mad, mad world we live in...... Edited July 18, 2020 by gordon s 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted July 21, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 21, 2020 (edited) Afternoon all.... Managed to get a mock up built last night of the mimic panel and was very glad that I did that, before having an expensive final print run of vinyl or laminated card. Pleased with the DCC Concepts electronics as 99% of it worked first time. I have found one output on one of the three boards appears to be faulty with no output on one connector to the led's. I've checked the socket with numerous led's and checked those led's in other sockets and everything points to a dead output. I did speak to DCC Concepts yesterday and they were great, telling me to return the board. It wasn't until I put the phone down did I realise these came from Hatton's and were part of an exchange from green to red/green leds a few weeks ago. Suddenly it all became very complicated, so I dropped the whole idea. There are spare outputs on the board I can use, so I've decided the complexity of returning a board to Hatton's and then back to DCC Concepts was an unneccessary hassle, so decided to leave it. All the routes work and the display is fine, other than a few minor changes I will make.The switched diamond crossing and its proximity to the adjacent turnout means led's are on top of each other, so I will look at that with a view to improve. Overall it can be improved. The thickness of the tracks and diameter or the led's are controlling factors. First impressions are the size of the panel and I wonder whether smaller led bezels could improve things. That in turn would make the panel smaller, but the first requirement is visibility of routes and to that end, the panel does all it is asked. A few more weeks of testing will throw up areas of concern, so we'll see how it pans out. An enjoyable build which has thrown up various options. It certainly an improvement on the mini ECoS screen, so that's a big plus. Whether it needs to be this big is the real question....... Edited July 21, 2020 by gordon s 13 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 (edited) 36 minutes ago, gordon s said: . Whether it needs to be this big is the real question....... I suppose it depends on where you are going to stick it. Seriously though, it’s looking very good. From where will you be operating and need to see it? Mine is on a wall above the fiddle yard so it can be seen from anywhere around the layout - and so needed to be quite big. Did you renumber accessory decoders or bite the bullet and buy another board? Edited July 21, 2020 by BoD 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Barry O Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 21, 2020 can you get the LEDs to flash on and off? A lot better than my perspex plus switches panels.... Baz 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 Hi Gordon, Looking very good. It's bit late to ask this question, but I will anyway. I notice that every LED is on. What are the red LEDs for? Is it not sufficient for a LED to be either on or off to indicate whether a route is set or not? That way they can all be green (or white, or blue), your current-draw will be halved, and the dazzle-factor much reduced. A route will be set if there is a row of lit indicators along it, and not otherwise. It's much less stressful to recognize whether an indicator is on or off than to make your brain process the colour of it. cheers, Martin. 1 3 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted July 21, 2020 Author Share Posted July 21, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, BoD said: I suppose it depends on where you are going to stick it. Seriously though, it’s looking very good. From where will you be operating and need to see it? Mine is on a wall above the fiddle yard so it can be seen from anywhere around the layout - and so needed to be quite big. Did you renumber accessory decoders or bite the bullet and buy another board? Thanks BoD and Barry. I had to renumber all the turnouts consecutively within the mimic panel and used the three boards plus 17 additional MY3's for the crossovers. Played golf this morning so sat in a hot bath to ease the aches and pains and it did cross my mind to use smaller led's with the DCC Concepts boards. Of course there is a optimum size between what looks right and what I can see, so I'll play around a bit more and see what develops. One good thing is that all the routes via the ECoS all work and the right led's illuminate. What I now have to do is reprogramme most of the NCE Switch 8's that are connected to the turnouts or there will be numerous derailments or shorts as the wrong turnouts are thrown..... As a wall mounted display, I can't fault it, but the jury is still out when it is used in front of you. As it stands you still have to follow the lights through rather than it be immediately obvious the route chosen. You cannot see the whole route from side to side without moving your head across. More work is required... I now have this this thing in my head with a perspex panel and flush mounted led's that are 3mm diameter rather than the 9mm in the pic. Bit like the development of ET, so no one should be surprised...... It's the physical diameter of the led's and the spacing in a crossover that is dictating the double track spacing and hence the overall size. Here's a head on shot which shows a little more. Routes haven't been specifically seen so don't try and follow the lights... Edited July 21, 2020 by gordon s 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted July 21, 2020 Author Share Posted July 21, 2020 2 minutes ago, martin_wynne said: Hi Gordon, Looking very good. It's bit late to ask this question, but I will anyway. I notice that every LED is on. What are the red LEDs for? Is it not sufficient for a LED to be either on or off to indicate whether a route is set or not? That way they can all be green (or white, or blue), your current-draw will be halved, and the dazzle-factor much reduced. A route will be set if there is a row of lit indicators along it, and not otherwise. It's much less stressful to recognize whether an indicator is on or off than to make your brain process the colour of it. cheers, Martin. Thanks Martin, that's where I started.... My original order was just green leds, but I thought that green/red would be better and show a definite red for no entry, so returned them to Hatton's for exchange. Undecided now and I take your point, so may try and disconnect the reds to see if that improves things. Swapping over led's is an option and may offer a solution. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 Remember you wouldn’t just be disconnecting the reds but the red/greens, which would leave one route of each turnout not indicted at all. Unless you are just going to disconnect them to see how it looks. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted July 21, 2020 Author Share Posted July 21, 2020 That's what I meant. Just to see how it looked with just greens showing. That's really just part of the problem and doesn't change the physical size. Just measured the led's and the bezel in 9mm. My double track centres are 31mm, so that means 6.5mm between the bezels. I can't go much smaller than that as they will be on top of each other. A long, long time ago (cue Don Maclean). I played around with this small panel and here the led's are just 5mm diameter. Some of them have popped up out of the holes, but you get the gist.....and just plain green for the route set. None of this is a criticism of the product, just my personal view. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 Hi Gordon, Just doing some housekeeping on the Templot web site, and I came across this. For some reason I thought of Eastwood Town: https://templot.com/info/wooden_point_motors_1956.pdf I have no recollection of ever seeing it before, or where it came from. cheers, Martin. 2 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
37Oban Posted July 21, 2020 Share Posted July 21, 2020 Hi, regarding using green / red or just green led's, my brother used both on his control panel, and when concentrating on operating his layout the red gives a positive indication that that particular route is not set. It's totally clear and spotted, unlike an unlit green green led, which could be easily missed if you just glance at the panel. Just my opinion. Roja 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 24 minutes ago, gordon s said: Just measured the led's and the bezel in 9mm. My double track centres are 31mm, so that means 6.5mm between the bezels. I can't go much smaller than that as they will be on top of each other. Hi Gordon, If you get the panel screen-printed on solid perspex (i.e. at a sign-makers, rather than a digital copyshop), you could leave round transparent "holes" in the track lines, and mount the LEDs underneath on a separate board. Then it doesn't matter what size they are. You could even file flats on the bezels to fit close together. A bit of card could be glued between any that are very close to prevent light straying to the wrong "hole". You might need a darker colour than white for the panel background to prevent stray light showing through. You would have a smooth wipe-clean panel to spill your coffee on, and you could make it much smaller. cheers, Martin. 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted July 21, 2020 Author Share Posted July 21, 2020 Is there a quick way to reduce the size of my Sketchboard drawing, Martin? At the moment the page size is 1000 x 300 and just for fun I thought I may try 500 x 150. I tried changing the page size and that did what it's supposed to do and changed the page size, but didn't change the drawing. Exporting the track plan alone was straightforward onto a smaller page size, but I'd like to keep all the graphics so I can really get a feel for it. I have a hundred or so small led's and bezels kicking around, so may just have a bit of fun for the heck of it.... I get easily distracted..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 21, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, gordon s said: Is there a quick way to reduce the size of my Sketchboard drawing, Martin? Hi Gordon, Sure, but take it slowly and methodically. 1. WRITE DOWN the current page size. Divide the width by the height and WRITE DOWN the aspect ratio. 2. save a backup of the original SK9 file. 3. decide if you want to include the original track diagram in the size change. If so, allow all items to be selected. 4. select all the items you want resized. You can drag a fence rectangle around the whole lot, and/or shift-click each one. You may need to do that to get the track diagram included. 5. make sure you have selected all of them before proceeding. 6. click edit > combine items menu item. You now have a single item containing everything. 7. now on the modify tab, WRITE DOWN the figures showing for width and depth. If you didn't include the track diagram, these will be less than the full page size because of any margin spaces you have allowed in the design. 8. on the page tab, change to the new page size. It needs to have the same aspect ratio as before, or very close, otherwise you will end up with elliptical LEDs. 9. you can now resize the combined item to fit the new page. You can either drag the corner of it to fit the new page, or change the width and depth figures directly. If dragging, the aspect ratio will be locked, and circular items will stay circular. If entering dimensions it won't be -- it is up to you to change each of the dimensions by the same factor to preserve the aspect ratio. After resizing, you will probably want to move it a bit too for the best fit to the new page. Or if the new aspect ratio is exactly the same as before, and you included the original full-page track diagram, you can resize quickly by clicking the edit > resize item to fill page menu item. 10. now click edit > split items to regain access to each one. 11. save another SK9 file. cheers, Martin. Edited July 21, 2020 by martin_wynne 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium eldavo Posted July 21, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 21, 2020 Out of interest Gordon for the mimic panels on the Winchester club's layout I used 3mm flat top LEDs simply pushed into holes in the panel and secured with a tiny dab of glue from a hot glue gun. They are plenty bright enough to be visible from a reasonable distance. Cheers Dave 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted July 27, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 27, 2020 (edited) Hi Gang Hope you're all keeping well in these strange times.... Been raining on and off today so quite glad I'm not out on the course wandering around wet and cold. Did no one tell 'im upstairs it's July..... As usual on ET there's been a lot of time pondering and sometimes I can ponder for England. The mock up panel is up and working, but the sheer size of the panel has been nagging away at me. No problem when it's up on a wall several feet away, but just in front of the ECoS you have to scan across to follow the routes. The whole size is dictated by the size of the led's, so I'm playing around with a scaled down version using the DCC Concepts drivers and 3mm led's rather than the supplied ones which are nearer 9mm diameter across the bezel. Don't worry about the wave in the top panel. It's not really supported and the backing is only 2mm mdf just to try the concept. The original panel is 1000mm x 300mm and it can't be much smaller without the led's getting on top of each other. After numerous questions and answers with Martin, I've managed to reduce the whole thing to 600mm x 180mm. The aspect ratio is unchanged and the circles stayed circular, so that was a big plus..... Still not sure about red/green led's, but they are a lot better in the smaller size and don't dominate the panel. The ECoS actually has blue backlighting in common with a lot of tech these days, so I've ordered 100 blue led's to play around with. They will only be on/off so there may be a need for some additional led's that will be permanently on. These are common to several routes and will be needed to bridge the gaps between the switchable ones or there will be some large gaps in certain areas under certain switching conditions. I'm guessing they will have to have their own power supply, so no doubt questions will be asked nearer the time... Anyone else come up with this issue before? Hoping the postman will arrive later this week with the bezels and led's, so more to follow. The other task that needs to get underway is construction of four new crossovers which improve the operational requirements. Templot never ceases to amaze me that you can pull up the overall plan from months ago, add in a few crossovers, print them out and find they still line up with track that was laid some time ago. The slight discrepancy on the inner circuit in the bottom pic is my cutting and pasting and will be corrected before building commences. This will be the release crossover from the fast to slow line on the left approach. There is already a crossover in place, but that was before the adjacent crossing and as such a freight leaving the yard could only exit to the fast line, before eventually crossing to the slow in the right hand approach to ET station. As always a minimum radius of 36" means C10 turnouts and over 3' in length to cross from one line to the other. I may have to split this one into two parts as I don't think it will fit in our sink for washing prior to painting. Mind you I have strict cleaning instructions to follow as part of my permission to use it...... Other than that, my car has returned in one piece again and next Monday sees our first qualifying comp. Sadly our Owner/Head Pro collapsed and died from a heart attack at the course 10 days ago. He was only 62 and always appeared very fit and healthy. What a fragile life we lead..... Edited July 27, 2020 by gordon s 9 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted July 27, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 27, 2020 Hi Gordon, Looking good. If it was mine I would be toning down the platform colour a bit. At present they are distracting attention away from the tracks, which is what the panel is intended to be about. But your eyes may vary, of course. Martin. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Regularity Posted July 27, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 27, 2020 6 hours ago, gordon s said: Templot never ceases to amaze me that you can pull up the overall plan from months ago, add in a few crossovers, print them out and find they still line up with track that was laid some time ago. I think Martin would be extremely worried if that were not the case! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post gordon s Posted July 28, 2020 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 28, 2020 (edited) Thanks for your inputs guys. Some interesting ideas that I'm tinkering around with. A combination of Dave and Martin's suggestions could well be the way forward and offer an interesting solution. The blue led's turned up today as did a set of hollow tube punches. Trying to drill holes through paper was impossible without getting a rough edge, so I'd read somewhere about using punches. 24 hours later a set turned up from Amazon that certainly do the job and 3mm holes are really easy to create and come out very clean. I took on board Dave's idea of doing away with the bezel and hot glueing led's from the back. I assume the hot glue allows you to remove a failed led quite easily. I must admit that when I read Martin's suggestion about a sandwich construction, I did think it was a bit over engineered, but then I sat back for a while and thought about a sheet of 5mm black perspex at the back with the track diagram printed on paper/vinyl on top. I could punch all the holes out and then fix that to the black perspex and use that as a drilling template. The led's could be inserted from the back and hot glued into position. They would then be either flush or recessed into the holes and the black perspex would stop any light bleed from the led's. Top surface would be as Martin suggested, a plain, wipe clean sheet of clear perspex that would provide full protection to the plan and led's. Needless to say, some testing was called for.... Punched out a few holes in the plan and then drilled out a piece of 6mm pdf that was lying around. Very happy so far. The blue led's will match the ECoS and only show the route selected. Recessing the led into the panel tones down the brightness although I may well choose to drop the voltage slightly. I will tone down the platforms Martin, just haven't got round to it yet.... Edited July 28, 2020 by gordon s 18 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium eldavo Posted July 28, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 28, 2020 Smart. 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted July 28, 2020 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 28, 2020 I'm a bi-colour red/green man myself! Mike. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium St Enodoc Posted July 28, 2020 RMweb Premium Share Posted July 28, 2020 3 hours ago, gordon s said: The blue led's will match the ECoS and only show the route selected. 2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said: I'm a bi-colour red/green man myself! Irrespective of colour, I reckon that just illuminating the route will make the panel much easier to understand. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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